Tell the story about what this nominee achieved since the beginning of July 2015 (up to 650 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

inding themselves in a more competitive market, Berry Plastics knew they would have to overcome several challenges to hit their key business metrics of 15-18% profit growth and top line growth of 4-5%. Not only would the sales force, built on acquisition, need to leverage their best relationships from legacy companies, they would need to acquire new clients and expand their current client footprint with additional offerings as well.

Prior to Berry’s acquisition of PGI, the legacy company, they experienced little competition. Seemingly overnight, an influx of low cost competitors flooded the market. The sales force, accustomed to being relationship driven sales leaders, suddenly found themselves in an arena with a lot of competition. Additionally, the integration of different sales teams meant that most reps had developed their own systems for selling. This lack of a common selling process resulted in successes that were not easily replicable.

York and her team also needed to deal with yet another key issue, different account types and lengths of sales cycles. Reps were simultaneously dealing with large multi-national accounts and small accounts and were unsure of what process they should follow. York knew that introducing a framework would resolve this issue. She emphasized, even if the cycle is different, the process should be the same. Focusing on what the prospect can gain by working with Berry should be the foundation for all deals.

To combat the newly crowded marketplace and unify the combined sales teams, Berry began implementing the ValueSelling framework. They introduced the organization to the methodology with training workshops and took several steps to make sure the framework was ingrained in company culture. Chief among these was a Commercial Council focused on commercial excellence, responsible for developing and tracking the global selling process.

Introducing the ValueSelling framework gave the sales force a replicable process for uncovering and connecting to value in the eyes of their prospects. This was monumentally important in differentiating Berry from the sea of lower priced competitors. Asking the right questions allowed reps to quickly qualify deals and greatly reduced the amount of time reps spent working on deals that would later fall apart. Reps also began moving beyond the typical contacts in prospective organization, allowing them to connect business issues to Berry’s solutions. Additionally, the stronger communication opened up an invaluable feedback loop that allowed Berry to incorporate customer insight on demand to be included in their production process.

Committing to one selling framework unified not only the sales team, but also marketing, and research and development. Each team is measured with the same metrics and shares the same objectives.

The framework was measured and monitored using the Oracle Sales Cloud CRM. Specifically, Berry paid great attention to pre-call planning and made sure all pipeline opportunities were tracked. This allowed for easy deal check-ins and allowed the team to see which deals were lacking critical elements. Each regional leader is now responsible for driving culture, and sits on the Commercial Council. Collectively, the Commercial Council uses the data and feedback received through the rigorous tracking to make decisions on what changes need to be made, as well as what expectations should be. All of this is clearly communicated to the entire company, making objectives and metrics clear.

The introduction of this common framework has yielded significant results for Berry Plastics including:
• Growing profitability year over year
• Exceeding target share of wallet gains by 3%
• $12 million in incremental pricing improvement
• A growing vitality index - new products generated
•A more qualified pipeline resulting in less time wasted on non-deals.